No Sewing for Me Today! My Garden is Calling!

Today was a wonderful spring day. It was cool, but the sun was shining brightly. Needless to say, I spent most of the day in the garden. I transplanted a few things and tried to dig up a large section of flower bed that had been taken over by Creeping Bellflowers. Let me tell you, it is not easy to weed a garden while sitting in a wheelchair! I came within inches of landing face first into my cottoneaster bush when I leaned forward too far! Luckily my legs are getting stronger and I was able to keep my balance and not fall in!

It seems as if I have been battling this weed forever! It was in the garden when we moved into this house 25 years ago and it is still here now! In fact, it is even worse this year because no one did any weeding last year and this noxious weed took full advantage of that! I had to get DH to help me by digging down as deeply as possible in order to get at the roots which develop a sort of underground mat, making this weed almost impossible to eradicate!

I had been working in this part of the flower bed two years ago, just before my illness forced me out of the garden. I was planning on changing some of the plantings there and I had already removed most of the perennials. Today I transplanted the remaining ones. I will plant some annuals there this year in the hopes of being able to dig out any more Creeping Bellflowers should they come up later in the season. It is so difficult to work around the perennials and since I have to leave the heavy work up to DH, it is better if he doesn't have to decide which plants are weeds and which ones belong in the garden.

As I sat, enjoying the sunshine, a pair of cowbirds came to take a bath. They were fun to watch.

The garden was buzzing with insects today. Here is an enormous bumble bee trying to fit himself into one of the Pulmonaria flowers. This plant has flowers which range in colour from pink to blue. I read, on someone else's blog, that the colour of the flowers changes to blue once they are fertilized. That way the bees know which ones not to waste their time with. I thought about that theory a lot and I cannot believe that bees are that smart! What do they know about fertilization? It might be that they are attracted more to pink flowers. Maybe they can see that colour better. It is probably more basic than even that. I think the blue flowers, the old ones, don't have any nectar left in them. The bees are probably attracted to the pink flowers because of the sweet scent of nectar. Kind of like the way I am attracted to the wonderful smell of pure chocolate. Well, I'm just saying. You know.